Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Which school?

I've been doing the whole school tour thing over the last few days. Where we live you need to have picked your primary school by the end of first term and be ready to enrol at the start of the next term.

We had already picked the school we wanted to send Little B to in our minds. It's linked in with his current preschool, it uses the Walker Learning Curriculum from Prep to Grade 2, it's small (only 240 students), has a hugely involved parent and local community and fairly close to wherever we end up buying a home. But knowing in your mind and seeing in real life are two different things.

Plus I wanted to scope out a couple of other options, should our first choice turn out to be a complete dud :-)

Originally I thought we would keep him back until he was 6 but I have been duly informed by his 3 year old and 4 year old preschool teachers that it will be crazy to do so, and he will be extremely bored. Something I'd already guessed since he's starting to read already off his own bat.

But back to school tours. The first one was dismal - they ignored me at the office, then the principal was late, the tour was rushed and he felt no urge to answer my questions. I wasnt allowed to see any of the classes. Luckily this school was not on our choice list really, I just was checking out the options in the area.Then came our favoured school. My experience couldnt have been more different!! The school tour was unhurried, I saw all classes of all ages (without asking), the prep teachers stopped to tell me about their classes, I saw the Walker Learning method in action (love it, love it, love it). The whole school was small, child centred, community minded, and passionate about what they are doing.At least that's one decision down, and now Little B can attend the transition program when it starts in May. But it's been a bit of learning curve - I guess each age brings new experiences and challenges for both parent and child.